Jouveau-Dubreuil claimed to have discovered this cave from information he had found on the Udayendiram copper plates which had referred to a village given away by the Pallava ruler Nandivarman II that sounded like Kumaramangalam.
Subbarayan was born on 11 September 1889 in the family estate at Kumaramangalam, Salem district and had his education at Presidency College, Madras, University of Dublin, the University of London and Christ Church, Oxford.